Develop procedures to facilitate effective working relationships with colleagues

For this assessment criterion, you will be required to develop procedures to facilitate effective working relationships with colleagues. This means ensuring that there are processes in place to enable effective teamwork and cultivate open, respectful and supportive relationships based on mutual trust.

For example, you may have a process for conducting team meetings to ensure that time is used efficiently. There should be a set start and end time, which is adhered to, and an agenda should be set and followed. The agenda should be set beforehand and all participants given the opportunity to add any agenda items. Ground rules should be set to stick to the agenda, minimise chit-chat and value everyone’s input. This can help to ensure effective working relationships amongst the team.

Develop processes to accommodate different types of working relationships and a range of colleagues

A ‘range of colleagues‘ can include other health and care professionals within an organisation including ancillary staff, team members and volunteers. Each individual will have a different background, experiences, skills, knowledge, expertise and job role so it is essential to respect the diversity this brings to the working environment and acknowledge that not all working relationships will be the same. For example, the relationship we have with the cooks and cleaners in a care home will be different to the relationship that we have with clinical staff.

Develop and lead the implementation of communication strategies when working with all internal stakeholders

Communication strategies are used to establish clear channels of information sharing and feedback throughout the organisation. For example, you may use channels such as email, newsletters and notice boards to convey organisational messages en masse. Care should be taken to ensure that the message that you wish to convey is clear and concise with no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding.

Demonstrate trustworthiness when colleagues divulge personal confidences

When colleagues divulge personal confidences, you should be supportive and recognise that it probably took a lot of courage from them to speak out. Showing concern and respecting the individual’s confidentiality will help to build bonds of trust.

Use a range of communication skills during ongoing communication, individual and team meetings, to facilitate effective working relationships

You will need to use a variety of communication skills to facilitate effective working relationships. This can include:

• Verbal – as well as being mindful of the words you use, you should also take care to ensure other aspects of your communication are conveying the same meaning, including your tone, body language and facial expressions.
• Active listening – when a colleague is speaking, you should try to stay focused on what they are saying, along with their body language to understand their perspective clearly. Summarising their main points can show your understanding or give them the opportunity to correct you.
• Question & answer – using open-ended questions, rather than questions that simply require a yes/no answer can allow increased freedom of expression and help to gather more information
• Written/electronic – written communications should be clear and legible and care should be taken with electronic communications via social media, email etc. because they can be perceived as colder than face-to-face interaction.